Verasity ICO (VERA Coin): Video Sharing Rewards Platform?

Verasity is developing a platform to host streaming videos that will reward both their creators and viewers with an internal cryptocurrency. The platform's features will include a “proof of view” verification that monitors users' interest, advertising that pays users for their attention, and the opportunity for viewers to fund their favorite creators by purchasing a share of their future earnings.

While the company has set forth interesting ideas and published an impressive amount of academic research about its product, its predictions for user interest seem overly optimistic.

Team Behind Verasity

Between their founders and development team, Verasity already employs 17 people, many of them full-time. The team is highly experienced, with decades of collective experience in finance and software development. The company has also partnered with several prominent investment firms and technology startups to help strengthen every dimension of its business.

Verasity has not yet gained a large audience on social media; its Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram pages have fewer than 50 followers combined. It is also yet to gain much coverage from online publications, aside from a few that aggregate information about ICOs. However, representatives from the company are scheduled to attend blockchain-related conferences all around the world in spring of 2018, which will likely increase the company's profile significantly.

It's not clear where the company is located; its whitepaper mentions that it is legally incorporated in Cyprus, but its website lists an address in the Cayman Islands, and considering that both nations are tax havens, it’s probably based somewhere else entirely.

Verasity's Technology

Verasity's primary product is a content management system (CMS) that will host streaming videos, with several features that make it distinctly different from existing video platforms such as YouTube.

On Verasity's platform, advertisers will pay viewers for their attention using the service's internal cryptocurrency, the Vera coin. Viewers can then pay content publishers for access to exclusive videos, or hold onto the currency. Advertisers can also pay video publishers directly to receive promotion within the videos.

Advertisers and video creators will be able to closely monitor users' interaction with their content through the company's patented proof of view system. Verasity has also said that it will keep a reserve of its currency that it can use to strategically stimulate growth within its ecosystem.

The company is also developing what it calls the Spark Marketplace, which will allow video creators to crowdfund their projects by selling users shares of their future revenue. Users will be able to invest in their favorite artists, and these creative people will be able to fund their unique projects without middlemen.

While Verasity has completed much of the programming for its video player software, its platform is still very early in development. The full version of its site will not be launched until sometime in 2019, and the mobile app will not be released until a year later.

Verasity ICO (VERA Coin) Details

Verasity is using an ERC-20 token as a placeholder for the actual Vera coin, which is still in development. The company will release its own blockchain using a delegated proof of stake consensus. The Vera coin will be released at the end of 2018, along with both desktop and web-based wallets, and will directly replace the ERC-20 tokens. It does not mention any listing on public exchanges.

The company provides little information about its initial private sale; neither its website nor any of its published papers mention the start date, discounts, or amount being sold, but it is certain that it will end on April 30, 2018. An open pre-sale will run through May, and then the full ICO will run during June.

A total of 12,491,500,000 ERC-20 tokens will be created; 12% will be sold during the pre-sale for $0.00750 apiece, and 10% will be sold during the public sale for $0.001. Investors participating in either sale must spend between $1,000 and $50,000, and the sale is closed to buyers from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and a few other countries.

The Verasity ICO (VERA Coin) Verdict

Verasity's team has already developed some very powerful software, but the platform will likely struggle to compete with existing video hosting services, since users not already enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies may not be interested in such a service.

Investors curious about the Vera coin should carefully watch the company's product development and the enthusiasm of its users, especially considering the large expensive the sale requires.